The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

randomjsa:The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

Let me laugh even harder.

If you did, it would be a nice change of pace from all your whining and crying. So the article didn't get through to you at all, did it? Let me guess: David Frum is a RINO, a traitor, a commie, etc. Oh, and also Romney still had a chance at taking Ohio!

randomjsa:The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

Let me laugh even harder.

I have no idea why you're laughing even harder, but the mere fact that you attacked it makes me think it's 100% true. Your track record of supporting complete and utter bs has preceded you.

I Like Bread:Speaking of which, here's an interesting article I dug up recently.Were the early 1960s a golden age for healthcare?

This is why Politifact sucks:

As soon as we heard this, we wondered whether his portrayal was accurate. We considered putting his comment to the Truth-O-Meter, but we decided that it was impossible to do so. We couldn't prove a negative -- that "there was nobody out in the street suffering with no medical care" during that era.

That's not attempting to prove a negative. The statement that "nobody suffered from lack of health care" is a testable assertion. All you need to do is find one destitute person who died of a treatable condition or a living person who had no access to health care in that time frame and recalls suffering for it.

randomjsa:The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

Let me laugh even harder.

You'll have to laugh pretty loudly to hear yourself over everyone laughing at you.

Generation_D:Nostalgia is great when one can cherry-pick only the good parts.

[thefeministwire.com image 850x551]

Good parts? I only watched two seasons, but from L: knocked up and ignored, dunno who that is, raped by her fiancee, too dumb to realize she repeatedly cheated on by her husband, nympho whoreson identity thief who shunned his brother before suicide, closeted gay, alcoholic, closeted gay

Ma Bell had the monopoly on the telephone system. They owned the phones, they owned the lines, they owned it all. If you had a working telephone, it was either owned by Ma Bell or stolen property. It was an absolute monopoly on our communications infrastructure. That's why you had a running skit on SNL with the punch line "what are you going to do, we're the phone company?".

Actually, yes. You rented your Western Electric phone when you subscribed from American Telephone and Telegraph. I'm pretty sure the other phone company out in the rural parts of the country did it exactly the same.

In the 1970s the only way to own Western Electric equipment was to buy it off of Bell system employees who were gray-market selling it at HAM radio fests.

Ma Bell had the monopoly on the telephone system. They owned the phones, they owned the lines, they owned it all. If you had a working telephone, it was either owned by Ma Bell or stolen property. It was an absolute monopoly on our communications infrastructure. That's why you had a running skit on SNL with the punch line "what are you going to do, we're the phone company?".

Look, I may be a RINO because I believe evolution is a thing and that men are likely warming the climate of the planet. But when did we get so far away from the conservative tenet of "If something does not work, return to the previous, working method."

The 90s had tax rates that worked for America. Start there if you want to start reigning this defecit in.

Actually, yes. You rented your Western Electric phone when you subscribed from American Telephone and Telegraph. I'm pretty sure the other phone company out in the rural parts of the country did it exactly the same.

In the 1970s the only way to own Western Electric equipment was to buy it off of Bell system employees who were gray-market selling it at HAM radio fests.

Yep and you had to pay a rental fee for each phone in your house every month. That is why homes back then only had one phone in them, and on the rare occasion they had two.

i think the memory of the 'bakelight harvest gold/baby-shiat green telephone with the rotary dial and the 500 foot long cord' is one of those indicators of age, kind of like remembering beer cans that had pull tabs.

there was a time when that was the phone you could get, because that's all that was being rented from the phone company - i could be remember it sideways, but i don't think it was a matter of 'owning a phone is illegal' so much as it was illegal for them to be sold - i remember when a phone store opened up in a local mall (right next to the Lowrey Organ, complete with fat housewifes playing ooompa-music) and it being a momentous occasion, at least.the day the world changed, and you could get a phone shaped like Garfield. Garfield! we didn't get our flying cars, but dammit we got garfield phones.

i think the memory of the 'bakelight harvest gold/baby-shiat green telephone with the rotary dial and the 500 foot long cord' is one of those indicators of age, kind of like remembering beer cans that had pull tabs.

there was a time when that was the phone you could get, because that's all that was being rented from the phone company - i could be remember it sideways, but i don't think it was a matter of 'owning a phone is illegal' so much as it was illegal for them to be sold - i remember when a phone store opened up in a local mall (right next to the Lowrey Organ, complete with fat housewifes playing ooompa-music) and it being a momentous occasion, at least.the day the world changed, and you could get a phone shaped like Garfield. Garfield! we didn't get our flying cars, but dammit we got garfield phones.

BarrRepublican:Look, I may be a RINO because I believe evolution is a thing and that men are likely warming the climate of the planet. But when did we get so far away from the conservative tenet of "If something does not work, return to the previous, working method."

You're really missing the whole "cherry picking" thing, aren't you?

See also: a lack of understanding of this concept when it comes to the modern GOP vs the modern Democratic Party:

Today's GOP blindly abhors every piece of watered-down conservative legislation that originates from someone with a D in front of their name. Rush Limbaugh's head would explode into thousands of oxycontin-soaked pieces if someone suggested an actual liberal policy. On anything.

randomjsa:The president was re-elected by people who want to work -- and who were convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the president's policies were more likely to create work than were the policies advocated by my party.

Let me laugh even harder.

It's certainly why I pulled the lever for Gary Johnson and went straight Dem downticket.

If only one side acts like adults and treats me with enough respect to say "here are the details of our plan" then they get my vote. Congressional Republicans acted like petulant children over at least the last two years.

And I work for a defense contractor. I know I'd see more work once Romney bombed Iran. That's how bad they've farked this up. I don't trust the GOP anymore after the shiat they pulled in the '00s.

No one should be required to register for the draft. More importantly, draft registry should have no bearing on the ability of a citizen to perform his/her voting duties and no affect on his/her ability to procure education aid.

Also, 91% is high to me and I fall somewhere within a triangle made up of Democrats, non-authoritarian libertarians and the Green party. I do, however, agree that taxes on the richest among us should be increased as well as cutting the defense budget.

clkeagle:BarrRepublican: Look, I may be a RINO because I believe evolution is a thing and that men are likely warming the climate of the planet. But when did we get so far away from the conservative tenet of "If something does not work, return to the previous, working method."

You're really missing the whole "cherry picking" thing, aren't you?

See also: a lack of understanding of this concept when it comes to the modern GOP vs the modern Democratic Party:

Today's GOP blindly abhors every piece of watered-down conservative legislation that originates from someone with a D in front of their name. Rush Limbaugh's head would explode into thousands of oxycontin-soaked pieces if someone suggested an actual liberal policy. On anything.

I understand the sentiment, hellObamacare is a heritage foundation product.

Barack Obama, despite the gasbags' penchant to label thing communist, is the best Republican president in my lifetime. Period.

Gulper Eel:RoyBatty: Did David Frum ever apologize for putting Iran in the axis of evil a few weeks after they offered sympathy and help to us after 9/11?

Because a transparently self-serving gesture totally makes up for 30 years of general asshattedness.

Without excusing the violence committed over the years by Iran, we can acknowledge that the United States committed grave offenses against the sovereignty of Iran and against the Iranian people for many decades before factions of that society turned to asshattedness. Perhaps, they should have sought a non-violent means of protesting U.S. interference in their affairs, but their failure to seek a path to peaceful resistance does not negate the role of the USA in our past conflicts.

clkeagle:Today's GOP blindly abhors every piece of watered-down conservative legislation that originates from someone with a D in front of their name. Rush Limbaugh's head would explode into thousands of oxycontin-soaked pieces if someone suggested an actual liberal policy. On anything.

it's worse than that even. Ther even abhor legislation that they proposed and spent two decades promoting because someone with a (D) said 'ok, we'll give your way a go'.

At 18, I think a firm argument could be made that they are still boys, but yes, males are still required to register for the draft. Draft requirements have been in place since Reagan was in office. There was no peace time draft requirement prior to Reagans' tenure. (Yes, I'm aware that we currently are at war.)

Lunaville:Without excusing the violence committed over the years by Iran, we can acknowledge that the United States committed grave offenses against the sovereignty of Iran and against the Iranian people for many decades before factions of that society turned to asshattedness. Perhaps, they should have sought a non-violent means of protesting U.S. interference in their affairs, but their failure to seek a path to peaceful resistance does not negate the role of the USA in our past conflicts.

While true, that wasn't even my point. My point was that in 2001/2002, regardless of our past histories, Iran and the US seemed to be at a good place to make progress towards each other, and Frum's speech, way too clever by far, alienated and positioned Iraq as an enemy when we might have been able to turn things around.

Look, they aren't EVER going to let go of the delusion that only white republicans have or want jobs. They are NEVER changing their tune on that, ever. That is their biggest and hardest selling point to their base.

It seriously turns them on to imagine themselves as this besieged, oppressed minority, valiantly struggling against the corrupt ravening hordes of evil, godless jobless liberals. Mighty Christian soldiers doing the Good Work but constantly under attack by the very people they labor for.

Reality of course is a little different. Reality has a liberal bias, and the simple facts are that RedStates are welfare states, that by and large survive by the largess of productive blue states. Liberals and democrats and humanist libertarians all over America work and pay taxes so that back country white trash can live on welfare and food stamps and angrily decry minorities getting "obamaphones"(that were a bush administration invention).

Both of my parents worked for the phone company. In 1962, we had a party line. It was prohibitively expensive to get your own line at that point, and there were long waiting lists even to get a party line. The phone was permanently installed; you couldn't unplug a phone and move it to a jack in a different room. You couldn't disconnect it or turn off the ringer either. If some jackass wanted to keep calling you at 2 AM, you could take the phone off the hook. If you did that, there would be loud tone coming from it for a few minutes. And the phone company didn't like you doing that; they considered that abusing the system, and they'd call you up and yell at you about it. Also, when the phone was off the hook, an operator could listen in. If someone was speaking near the phone, she could hear it.

I remember hearing my dad gripe about crazy little old ladies who would "just sit and talk all day." With disgust and scorn in his voice. What were they doing wrong? "Well they just sat there and talked...all day. About nothing."

How do you know they talked about nothing?

No response to that--I think he didn't like admitting that they all regularly eavesdropped illegally on people.

And why is it a problem? Isn't a phone to talk?

Yeah, but if everybody talked all the time, the lines would be busy all the time, and then nobody could make a call.

So is there a rule that says how much you can talk? When someone buys a phone, are they told, you can only use it a certain number of minutes a day?

No. But these crazy little old ladies, they just sit and talk...all day.

So that was 1962. Cranky white men angry about sad, lonely old women using telephones to talk to each other. Now rolling forward to 2012, and I hear cranky white men angry at, of all things, teachers, and I think, really, not much has changed.

i think the memory of the 'bakelight harvest gold/baby-shiat green telephone with the rotary dial and the 500 foot long cord' is one of those indicators of age, kind of like remembering beer cans that had pull tabs.

there was a time when that was the phone you could get, because that's all that was being rented from the phone company - i could be remember it sideways, but i don't think it was a matter of 'owning a phone is illegal' so much as it was illegal for them to be sold - i remember when a phone store opened up in a local mall (right next to the Lowrey Organ, complete with fat housewifes playing ooompa-music) and it being a momentous occasion, at least.the day the world changed, and you could get a phone shaped like Garfield. Garfield! we didn't get our flying cars, but dammit we got garfield phones.

saying it's illegal to own a phone is technically correct but doesn't accurately convey the issue.

No, it's not technically correct. You could own a phone. It didn't violate any law to own one. No one was ever arrested for owning their own phone.

The issue was that Ma Bell leased the phones to customers, it didn't sell them retail. While this had some disadvantages, it also had advantages: If the phone broke*, TPC would replace it for you. They were responsible for maintenance from "lip to ear", anything between those two was owned by the phone company, and they were responsible for fixing it if it went wrong.

But no, if you owned a phone, provided you didn't steal it (ie., walk off with TPC property that you were leasing), it wasn't illegal. You could even hook it up, it's just that TPC wouldn't fix it.

*Which they didn't often do, because they were built like a friggin' electronic tank.

"Compare the United States of 2012 to the United States of 1962. Leave aside the obvious points about segregation and discrimination, and look only at the economy."

While the article makes a fair point, this part in particular is what irks me. It would be easy to disregard that little bit of American social behavior of '62 if it weren't still being harped by the fringe of the right to this day.

It's just not PC to do so these days, so they've got to be subtle about it. Instead, you've got to turn the argument around and call those dirty liberals racist for demonizing their culture and placing preference on those damn minorities, what with their ever-growing voices in politics these days.

Whatever, I'm nit-picking a CNN article that actually made an honest attempt at being reasonable. I can at least say I somewhat agree. Nobody voted for socialism, and the commie boogey man isn't coming for anybody's money.

I do think the GOP is slowly becoming irrelevant, though, primarily because of their social stances. It'll take a lot more than reflection for them to regain their footing with the electorate.

*Which they didn't often do, because they were built like a friggin' electronic tank.

yah, again, i think it's just one of those things you either have as a memory, or you missed out - we lived in an era where it was not only easy, but so very tempting to *kill somebody with a telephone*.

and the sonofabiatch would still work after you caved someones skull in with it.

ok, it was babyshiat green, and nobody really missed anything if they don't have that memory, but...i need some kind of salve for the indications that i'm an old fart, and i'll take what i can get.

Monkeyhouse Zendo:The Evil That Lies In The Hearts Of Men: Don't all men still have to register for the draft?

It's called "selective service" now but yeah.

Odd that you don't see too many feminists fighting to get their names on that list. ;)

Unfortunately, there are a few. I've long opposed anyone being required for selective service. I formed my opposition in the nineties. I had this boyfriend that was quite knowledgeable about issues. He was the most truly peaceful person I had met at that time. He didn't just run his mouth about peace; he tried to live and practice what he believed. And he did not vote. Prior to meeting him, I had not realized how our selective service registration requirements tilt our electorate away from peace and toward war.

it is absolute discrimination against men. And it is discrimination against the most peaceful in our population. I repeat, no one should be required to register for the draft.

Our meeting for worship encourages boys to register as conscientious objectors and to proceed with voting, but they are still registered and it strikes me as wrong, wrong, wrong. As a Mom of a boy and a girl, I don't want both my children equitably discriminated against via a co-gender draft. I want draft requirements nixed for both of them. My son is just as valuable to me as my daughter is.

This statement is so long. If I ever go to grad school, I'm going to post my dissertation to FARK. Ha!

RoyBatty:Lunaville: Without excusing the violence committed over the years by Iran, we can acknowledge that the United States committed grave offenses against the sovereignty of Iran and against the Iranian people for many decades before factions of that society turned to asshattedness. Perhaps, they should have sought a non-violent means of protesting U.S. interference in their affairs, but their failure to seek a path to peaceful resistance does not negate the role of the USA in our past conflicts.

While true, that wasn't even my point. My point was that in 2001/2002, regardless of our past histories, Iran and the US seemed to be at a good place to make progress towards each other, and Frum's speech, way too clever by far, alienated and positioned Iraq as an enemy when we might have been able to turn things around.